And through the whole trying period, especially as Strang mended, occurred passages of talk between Linday and Madge.  Nor was he kind, nor she rebellious.

“It’s a nuisance,” he told her.  “But the law is the law, and you’ll need a divorce before we can marry again.  What do you say?  Shall we go to Lake Geneva?”

“As you will,” she said.

And he, another time:  “What the deuce did you see in him anyway?  I know he had money.  But you and I were managing to get along with some sort of comfort.  My practice was averaging around forty thousand a year then—­I went over the books afterward.  Palaces and steam yachts were about all that was denied you.”

“Perhaps you’ve explained it,” she answered.  “Perhaps you were too interested in your practice.  Maybe you forgot me.”

“Humph,” he sneered.  “And may not your Rex be too interested in panthers and short sticks?”

He continually girded her to explain what he chose to call her infatuation for the other man.

“There is no explanation,” she replied.  And, finally, she retorted, “No one can explain love, I least of all.  I only knew love, the divine and irrefragable fact, that is all.  There was once, at Fort Vancouver, a baron of the Hudson Bay Company who chided the resident Church of England parson.  The dominie had written home to England complaining that the Company folk, from the head factor down, were addicted to Indian wives.  ‘Why didn’t you explain the extenuating circumstances?’ demanded the baron.  Replied the dominie:  ’A cow’s tail grows downward.  I do not attempt to explain why the cow’s tail grows downward.  I merely cite the fact.’”

“Damn clever women!” cried Linday, his eyes flashing his irritation.

“What brought you, of all places, into the Klondike?” she asked once.

“Too much money.  No wife to spend it.  Wanted a rest.  Possibly overwork.  I tried Colorado, but their telegrams followed me, and some of them did themselves.  I went on to Seattle.  Same thing.  Ransom ran his wife out to me in a special train.  There was no escaping it.  Operation successful.  Local newspapers got wind of it.  You can imagine the rest.  I had to hide, so I ran away to Klondike.  And—­well, Tom Daw found me playing whist in a cabin down on the Yukon.”

Came the day when Strang’s bed was carried out of doors and into the sunshine.

“Let me tell him now,” she said to Linday.

“No; wait,” he answered.

Later, Strang was able to sit up on the edge of the bed, able to walk his first giddy steps, supported on either side.

“Let me tell him now,” she said.

“No.  I’m making a complete job of this.  I want no set-backs.  There’s a slight hitch still in that left arm.  It’s a little thing, but I am going to remake him as God made him.  Tomorrow I’ve planned to get into that arm and take out the kink.  It will mean a couple of days on his back.  I’m sorry there’s no more chloroform.  He’ll just have to bite his teeth on a spike and hang on.  He can do it.  He’s got grit for a dozen men.”